Is 3D Visualization the Next Step For Big Data?

With the big data explosion in full steam, companies across multiple industries are resourcefully aggregating data to pinpoint numbers, trends and patterns that hold the key to improving their bottom lines. But as data grows increasingly cumbersome and complex, managing that data and extracting the highest value of intelligence is presenting a challenge for organizations looking to drive truly educated decisions. Many valuable analytics solutions have come to market over the last few years, but as we look ahead to 2013, will 3D visualization techniques offer companies a new way to manage, analyze and interact with their data?

Earlier this year President Obama jumped on the “big data bandwagon,” authorizing $200 million for funding big data research and developm... to be divided among the National Institutes of Health, the Defense and Energy departments and the U.S. Geological Survey. That’s a significant investment, and validates the potential value of information derived from big data to truly improve critical initiatives. Organizations tasked with these projects have an opportunity to discover just how much value big data brings to the table -- but in order to deliver maximum ROI, it’s important that data is analyzed from every angle. The immense volume and inherent complexity of the data magnifies the analysis task to something beyond the standards of today’s methods. The present challenge is to utilize both technology and the powerful capabilities of human intuition to extract value and advantage from the information.

When we analyze data in the typical 2D format, usually comprised of numbers listed in a spreadsheet or grouped in a pie chart, there’s a limit to how much information we can actually take away and use for planning, making decisions, targeting customers, etc. While intelligence solutions can automatically provide insight, there’s a whole layer of detail yet to be uncovered – meaning that important trends could be buried in the numbers. Physically visualizing data empowers human cognitive processes and enables us to see what might not otherwise be seen when reviewing more traditional representations.

The concept of data visualization has been discussed over the last couple years, and a TED Talk by David McCandless from 2010 is a great example of how presenting data visually transforms it into a landscape you can explore with your eyes. Within this talk David provides several aesthetic 2D representations of data, but interactive 3D is the next step in this evolution and opens the door for even more value to be discovered.

Think about how Google has added 3D imagery to its maps or how the Mars Rover is sending back 3D images for NASA’s research efforts. 3D imagery is becoming an incredibly important resource to consumers and researchers alike -- but the question is why? Data has always been a key component to the research process, but the focus on big data is relatively new to the business world (hence the phrase “big data explosion”) and has become much more complicated with imaging advancements, mobile developments and other innovations offering new ways to collect data. Using imagery to represent data is certainly something businesses should take into consideration as they approach the large quantities of data that researchers have been working with for years.

TerraEchos, Mindtel and FMS are three examples of big data solution providers using zSpace, an interactive 3D virtual holographic platform, to empower their customers with big data visualization. As we move into 2013 I predict we will see more companies looking for new ways of utilizing big data to drive their business forward, and from the development side we will likely see more focus on creating visualization applications. While 3D capabilities are still advancing -- the potential to use these types of technologies as a way to discover valuable organizational trends is certainly within reach.

Dave Chavez is the chief technology officer at 3D technology company Infinite Z. He brings 20 years of experience working with start-up companies, and has managed product development teams through the full range of the product life cycle, from initial concept to volume production.

You need to be a member of Innovation Insights to add comments!

Whilst I'd certainly agree that 3D is going to be important in the future for the visualisation of data, I'd be wary of making the assumption that you need sophisticated display devices in order to gain a lot of the advantages of 3D. There's an interesting (if old - 2004) paper on "Comparing CAVE, Wall, and Desktop Displays for Navigation and Wayfinding in Complex 3D Models" from the Proceedings of Computer Graphics International Conference, CGI ISBN: 0-7695-2171-1 that concluded that "providing structure and developing interaction techniques accommodating a wide range of users yields better performance than focusing on display characteristics alone."

With Datascape http://www.daden.co.uk/datascape/ we've tried to bring as much of the power of immersive 3D data analytics as we can to the "ordinary" PC - and the research we've done does suggest that even the "hardware-less" immersive experience delivers clear benefits over non-immersive 3D.

That said, when we can get some suitable funding we'd love to try Datascape out with an immersive rig such as zspace!